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2006-06-23, 01:46 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Who is Batman? (I know what you're thinking)
Batman definitely considers himself--the real him--to be Batman, primarily. He grudgingly accepts that Bruce Wayne is also a part of who he is, but he still identifies with Batman much more than Bruce. AS good example of this is during the Bruce Wayne: Fugitive saga. After he is framed for murder and escapes from prison, Batman is actually glad that he can't be Bruce Wayne anymore. He says that he feels free for the first time in his life, and is happy to finally be rid of the cumbersome chore of pretending to be Bruce Wayne. Later, he finally decides that the Bruce Wayne pesona is worth saving, because a dying police officer asks him to solve the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne--because he believes that their orphaned child deserves justice and couldn't really have grown up to be a murderer. At this point, Batman does decide that there's something worthwhile to Bruce Wayne after all, and sets out to clear his name. But his reaction to the idea that Bruce Wayne could be gone forever speaks volumes.
HUMANS....... ARE....... SUPERIORRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But she was naked! And all... articulate!!
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2006-06-23, 02:03 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Who is Batman? (I know what you're thinking)
Originally Posted by Holy_KnightTake the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
The irony is that my favorite colors are black and red, and I almost always play chaotic good characters.
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2006-06-23, 02:19 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Who is Batman? (I know what you're thinking)
Originally Posted by CelestialStickHUMANS....... ARE....... SUPERIORRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But she was naked! And all... articulate!!
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2006-06-23, 02:22 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Who is Batman? (I know what you're thinking)
Bruce Wayne died that night in the alley with his parents. He then became a transexual named "Mary Sue" and somehow gained the spectacular power "Plot Armor" to hide this change, he put on a bat outfit and ran around putting psychos in minimum security environments and convincing himself it's not his fault when they kill again and again and again.
"So...the orphan attacked you?
"Aye"
"And so you cut him down with your axe in self defense."
"Aye..."
"I don't believe you."
"Damn...would ye believe that th' orphan was an alien?"
"No"
"Damn."
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2006-06-23, 02:25 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Who is Batman? (I know what you're thinking)
Originally Posted by Alchemistmerlin
Originally Posted by Holy_KnightTake the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
The irony is that my favorite colors are black and red, and I almost always play chaotic good characters.
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2006-06-23, 02:38 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Who is Batman? (I know what you're thinking)
Originally Posted by CelestialStickHUMANS....... ARE....... SUPERIORRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But she was naked! And all... articulate!!
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2006-06-23, 05:28 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Who is Batman? (I know what you're thinking)
Where does this whole Mary Sue character come from???
thanx to Abardam for these fantastic Erfworldstyle sigatars
For the awesome 'The Wolf'-sigatar I thank Sampi.
Kd7sov, thank you for the Girl Genius, Agatha Heterodyne avatar
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2006-06-23, 09:12 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Who is Batman? (I know what you're thinking)
its a literary term for a character that's at hin stand in for the author herself
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2006-06-23, 09:22 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Who is Batman? (I know what you're thinking)
Originally Posted by battleburn
I think people are starting to see what I was trying to point out, that name or no the personality that truly exists in the entity calling itself Batman is the dark, night stalking avenger. Bruce Wayne as a person doesn't exist, and hasn't for a long time. He called himself Bruce Wayne for lack of a better term until was invented as a name. Its the Batman personality that I look as being the most accurate and true to the character.
This is of course the fun with Batman as opposed to say Spiderman. Spiderman is Peter Parker in a wonky outfit, we now this since in terms of personality they really aren't that different. Bats and Bruce are very different people, or rather Bruce begins to separate them after some time, where Batman is very much him, and the Bruce Wayne that interacts with the world at large very much isn't.
So I guess it comes down to figuring out if Batman is put on by Bruce Wayne, or Bruce is really Batman and acts the part of billionaire playbody.
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2006-06-23, 10:26 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Who is Batman? (I know what you're thinking)
Originally Posted by CelestialStick
Look at your statement. Basically, the "dark, twisted Bruce Wayne" is Batman. That's what we mean when we say that Batman is the real personality.
I think in the Batman origins too, both graphic novel and movies anyway, Bruce's encounter with the bats in the cave came before his parents were killed. That's when the Batman personality started.
The real Bruce Wayne died that night with his parents, like Holy Knight said. That left only the Batman personality. The Bruce Wayne front that he puts on is an act -- it's not even a personality.
(Oh, I haven't seen Batman Begins yet...)
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2006-06-23, 10:29 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Who is Batman? (I know what you're thinking)
Originally Posted by Ing
You deserve a cookie. ;D"So...the orphan attacked you?
"Aye"
"And so you cut him down with your axe in self defense."
"Aye..."
"I don't believe you."
"Damn...would ye believe that th' orphan was an alien?"
"No"
"Damn."
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2006-06-23, 04:17 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Who is Batman?
Originally Posted by Haggis_McCrablice
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2006-06-23, 06:39 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Who is Batman? (I know what you're thinking)
Nietzche... some people just say more than others...
I thought Spider-man was Peter Parker free from the downtrodden looser of Peter Parker. Spider-man is the Peter Parker who can make all the witty remarks that would get someone like Peter mauled. Peter uses the Spider-man persona to indulge in another part of his personality. For Bruce Wayne however I got the idea it was more of a public act. As I believe someone else said, the DC heroes use their secret identaties to hide who they are whilst Peter Parker hides behind Spider-man.
Peter Parker is Peter Parker, no matter what clothes he's wearing. Bruce Wayne, "public-figure millionaire playboy" is as much a mask as his bat-suit. I was never sure how much Bruce enjoyed being a playboy but it seemed to me very much like it's said in Batman Begins, an excuse for what someone with that much money does with it. Batman is the same thing, except this time it's a persona for criminals to fear rather than the public to read gossip magazines about. The real Bruce Wayne in some hard-working guy who spends too much time in a cave."that nighted, penguin-fringed abyss" - At The Mountains of Madness, H.P. Lovecraft
When a man decides another's future behind his back, it is a conspiracy. When a god does it, it's destiny.
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2006-06-23, 08:09 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Who is Batman? (I know what you're thinking)
Originally Posted by battleburn
From the post by Alchemistmerlin above. As someone said, it's just thread humor, though exceptionally good thread humor. :D
Originally Posted by TinSoldierTake the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
The irony is that my favorite colors are black and red, and I almost always play chaotic good characters.
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2006-06-24, 04:01 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Who is Batman? (I know what you're thinking)
While there are endless interpretations of Bats, my personal preference is for the Bruce has chosen to be Batman type. In this he could choose not as well. He chooses to because of what he suffered when his parents were killed, but some day he might decide he can no longer be Batman, or should no longer be Batman.
That's just my preference. But with all the interpretations out there, there are plenty enough of renditions to make everyone happy... er satisfied.
To be a man is, precisely, to be responsible.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
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2006-06-24, 01:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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- That would be in the butt, Rob
Re: Who is Batman? (I know what you're thinking)
Originally Posted by Beleriphon
Thats not the point of this discussion. I want to discuss who Batman is as a person. We all know the history, some of you know much more than I do, and I consider myself pretty well versed in the history.
To start I got this idea with a comment I made in the thread about Marvel's Civil War series detailing the US government try to force supers to reveal themselves publicly. This made me think about Batman, and what he would do if somebody tried to make him take off the mask.
IMO, though, he would continue to fight crime, just not necessarily as Batman. Contrary to what certain misguided writers have tried to claim, Bruce Wayne doesn't need the Batman identity to survive. There's also the "Matches" Malone identity, and others. In one story from the 50s or 60s, Bruce Wayne disguises himself as Starman to fight crime.
Bruce dresses up as a bat not because he fetishizes bats, or because of some metaphysical totemic source of his internal power, but because bats are scary and he uses fear to aid him in his battle against criminals.
Then I started thinking about Bruce Wayne and Batman dynamic. Is Bruce Wayne Batman, or is Batman Bruce Wayne. The comics tend to teeter between one or the other. At times its in the middle where Batman and Bruce are the same person just presenting different extremes of the personality.
Of course, my Batman is much more sane and human (and thus bad-ass) than most.
For me I always envisioned Bruce having died in that alley with his parents. We may not know it them, but a new person, a new personality festers and boils until a suit is donned and a new person emerges. Bruce is the veneer that Batman uses to appear normal. Its his given name, but its not the person that he is anymore. So is man the name that was given to him, or does he name himself?
Anyhoo thats my philisophical take on Bats, now for a more comic book legal take. If Batman arrests somebody, and being a deputy of the Gotham police it is possible, does the crook get to face his accuser in Batman or Bruce Wayne.
Nowadays, Batman is full-on unofficial, and probably takes great pains to make sure that he isn't the accusor, just that all the evidence is made available to the police so that they can build a proper case. It might make for an interesting story, where a defense attorney tries to get a case thrown out because the police had to rely on Batman to break the case and make the arrest, but as a status quo type thing, it would probably get boring real quickly.
While linked to the above the question is more are you being arrested by Bruce Wayne wearing a costume, or could Batman be considered a separate entity for the purposes of the justice system, being that the Batman is the deputy in name, not Bruce Wayne. I'm not a lawyer, or American, but I could see a slick attorney going either way.
Originally Posted by kamikasei
Originally Posted by battleburn
No. Justice. Not vengeance. Justice
Originally Posted by CelestialStick
He doesn't dress up as a bat to beat people up because he's crazy! He dresses up as a bat to SCARE PEOPLE who PREY ON THE INNOCENT, because he wants to help people.
As the line goes in "Batman Begins," the man's clearly "got issues." But he's not crazy.
Originally Posted by Tarlonniel
B) The Killing Joke was written to push the limits of Batman stories, but the author, Alan "Watchmen, V For Vendetta, The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and many more exellent books" Moore has since said that he kind of regrets some of what goes on in the book, because it has become more a blue-print for dark stories that glorify violence against women instead of laying the groundwork for the eventual reconstruction of the genre, which deconstructionist works are ideally supposed to be.
Originally Posted by CelestialStick
He might say that he considers himself Batman not Bruce Wayne, but the fact of the matter is that he is Bruce Wayne,
the psycopath who runs around dressed like a bat.
Aaron "The Mad Whitaker" Bourque
Women supposedly mature at a faster rate than men&&If that is true, how come they live so much longer then . . ?
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2006-06-24, 01:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Who is Batman? (I know what you're thinking)
I like the darkness of Batman, but someone linked a new comic by Frank Miller that I think goes way too far.
I like how Bruce Wayne is portrayed in Batman Beyond -- I still see him as the real Batman, but he no longer has to wear a facade.
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2006-06-24, 02:20 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Who is Batman? (I know what you're thinking)
too far? you mean the crazed rat eating "goddamn" batman?
Miller's managed to make batman sound like Sammuel L Jackson
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2006-06-24, 02:51 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Who is Batman? (I know what you're thinking)
Originally Posted by malagigiBatmanMary Sue literature, in which he's a borderline psychopath and can't stop himself from going out to gain vengenance repeatedly. In Batman Beyond, it's only the combnation of his weak heart and the fact that he nearly shot a criminal that caused him to give up the Batsuit. As the mature Barbara Gordon explains to Terry, fighting crime with Bruce was once like ballet, like poetry, but there came a time to hang up the leotards, only Bruce wouldn't do it.
Your view, however, fits in better with the earlier decades of Batman. The Batman who was the great detective or the 1940s, or the campy paladinal character of the 1960s, didn't seem compulsive or borderline pyschotic. Rather, he seemed, as you suggest, to have chosen the role.
To aaronbourque: Because of the length of your post, I won't quote it, but it contains some good points.
Whether or not Batman is a borderline-psychopath (or as in one comic I read during the 1980s, an actual, foaming-at-the-mouth psychopath) depends on the version. The Batman of my youth not only wasn't even a borderline psychopath, but not even dark. The Batman of the 1960s live-action show and the 1970s animated Superfriends really had no darkness to him at all, and while I read some of the comics of the 1960s, I didn't come away with an impression of Batman any different than the one I developed watching the tv shows. Perhaps if I reread them as an adult I'd see a difference, but I'm pretty sure that even if Batman was darker in the comics of the 1960s he wasn't twisted.
The dark, twisted, nearly- or actually-psychopathic Batman of the comics seems to have been an overreaction against the campy Batman of the 1960s and 1970s tv series. I really had no connection with Batman during the 1980s, other than that one comic, and it was the Batman movies of the 1990s really that introduced me to the dark, twisted Batman who seems to prevail today in several media.
You probably don't like the old campy Batman, and I confess that I've enjoyed seeing a darker Batman as an adult, but the old campy, paladinal Bruce Wayne took on the mantle of the Batman as a choice, to do justice, and not to wreak vengence.
Paul Dini's Batman seemed for a time to have struck a decent balance between the psychopathic Batman of the 1980s and the campy Batman of the 1960s. Toward the end of JLU, however, Dini seemed to veer, if not toward the psycopathic Batman of the 1980s, certainly towards the intensely paranoid Batman of the more recent comics. The earlier Batman didn't have plans to destroy every other superhero on the planet; Batman had long been friends with Superman, going all the way back to the frequent appearances of Batman and Robin in the 1940s radio serial. While I enjoyed seeing a darker Batman, clearly different in personality from Superman's boyscout, I can't abide a Batman who would gloat about having his hands around Superman's throat. I can almost se the later Batman of Dini, with his paranoid plots to kill every other superhero (which, happily, backfire and help the badguys in a lesson that the paranoid Batman needed to learn), doing the gloating. In fact I seem to recall a full-length Batman/Superman film, the one that launched The New Batman/Superman Adventures, in which Batman does sort of gloat in front of Superman over his little sliver of kryptonite. The immature, gloaty, and paranoid Batman, whether psychopathic or not, has no place so far as I'm concerned. The Batman who strove for justice wouldn't have waved a pice of kryptonite in Superman's face to begin with, much less gloat over it.
So while Dini might take the comics away from the near-psychopathic Batman, the Batman who compulsivley fights crime, I don't have so much faith that he'll produce a Batman who isn't still sick and twisted, paranoid and gloating. I hope I'm wrong, but as I probably won't read the comics anyway, I probably won't even know, at least for some time.Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
The irony is that my favorite colors are black and red, and I almost always play chaotic good characters.
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2006-06-25, 12:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Who is Batman? (I know what you're thinking)
Originally Posted by CelestialStick
I also think my idea fits in with Batman: Begins, and Batman from 89'. That said, I have never cared for the campy Batman as it robs the character of a lot of dramatic power.To be a man is, precisely, to be responsible.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
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2006-06-26, 03:29 AM (ISO 8601)
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Batman goes nuts
There was an episode of the later B:TAS "Gotham Knights" series in which Batman has been dosed with a toxin by Scarecrow that, instead of inducing fear, actually inhibited it. (This was also the first ep to show the revamp of Jonathan Crane's costume, which evoked an image of a hanged corpse.) The gas caused Batman to become violent, homicidal, and just plain not give a frig about his well-being or that of others. Robin has to actually physically stop him from strangling Scarecrow in a fit of rage. This is probably the closest the Timm/Dini Batman ever came to being truly an out-of-contol psychopath (though Martha Kent casually dismisses him as "that nut in Gotham" in S:TAS).
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2006-06-26, 08:14 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Who is Batman? (I know what you're thinking)
This thread is just awesome to read this thread could easily be used as an offical refrence to Batman.
In relation too all of this I like the batman from the new series "The Batman" that presents him as a mix of the early happy go lucky batman of the super friend with the dark batman of B:tas.
My 2 somethings
TSK[Image removed - animated]
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2006-06-26, 12:54 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Who is Batman? (I know what you're thinking)
I don't know about The Batman. He always seemed a little too happy in that one. I don't imagine that Batman is does what he does for the thrills, he's driven to do what he does out of some kind of desire to see justice done for his parents, and all people really. In The Batman Bruce almost seems to be having fun as Batman.
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2006-06-26, 02:57 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Who is Batman? (I know what you're thinking)
i actually agree. you have several identities
The Bat= his vigalanti persona. he goes to great lengths to give himself the APPERANCE of being a psychopath and a monster, thus to be frightning, those who know the batman know that this is not the real him, but many fear that playing the monster for so long may actually twist him and drag him down into darkness. this persona gives the illusion of twisted, dark, and psychopathic. when people worry about batman's health they worry that this persona is phasing into his real life and is no longer becoming an act.
Bruce Wayne= the public persona of the playboy. an act, entirely a smoke screen used to missled people as much as the Bat is. though it also acts as a way for him to revel stress as he gets to play the role of a privleged person. you know that after all the danger and stress he must at least find a release in dating playboy modles and the like. it provides a needed break from his real life
The Batman= his real presona. its obsessive, sngle minded, focused, and even a little cynical and cruel, but its the real him. he desires justice and acts it out. this is the calmer 'at rest' batman that's seen in the batcave, doing the detective work, talking to Alfred, training or somtimes bantering with his partners. he's dark and focused and tortured, but not a psychopath. only a few really know this true image, those include Alfred, Selina Kyle, Tim Drake, Barbra Gordon, James Gordon, and The Joker who saddly knows batman better than even most of his partners do. most of the Robins and Bat(blank) have not seen this true persona. the 3rd and 4th Robins probably didn't as did all batgirls and huntresses after Barbra, they probably mistakenly believe that The Bat is the real personality.
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2006-06-28, 02:52 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Batman goes nuts
Originally Posted by Haggis_McCrablice
I vaguely recall that "nut in Gotham" comment, but the real Dark Nut is Frank Miller.
Originally Posted by Beleriphon
Originally Posted by IngTake the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
The irony is that my favorite colors are black and red, and I almost always play chaotic good characters.
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2006-06-28, 04:41 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Who is Batman? (I know what you're thinking)
FYI there have been more "light" versions of batman then dark. I prefer the dark though.
[Image removed - animated]
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2006-06-28, 09:06 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Batman goes nuts
Originally Posted by CelestialStick
From the context, the implication is usually that:
"Batman"= "the dark and perhaps or perhaps not twisted soul who dresses up at as a Bat and calls himself the Batman" = The real Bruce Wayne.
"Bruce Wayne" = "Millionaire playboy pretending to be someone he's not" = The fake Bruce Wayne.
The terminology isn't perfect, obviously, but it's not impossible to understand either :P
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Moving on, I agree with the "Trinity" suggestion of "The Playboy, the Batman and the Bat"... which just got me thinking of a really lame pun involving baptism...I hate quotations. Tell me what you know - Ralph Waldo Emerson
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2006-06-28, 09:38 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Batman goes nuts
Originally Posted by CelestialStick